There was a bit of a hubbub here in Ohio when a State Supreme Court Justice told a youth group he won, "because of his knowledge of law, experience, and my name was first on most ballots".
I don't understand other commenters' concerns regarding helping uninformed voters without the time or wherewithal to do their own research to identify preferred candidates based on their listed party. Frankly if someone cannot inform themselves about candidates I would think it is preferable that they don't vote in the first place.
Precisely. We really need to not allow voters the franchise simply because they fog a mirror. I promote the concept of “earned suffrage”. Details to be discussed, but the ignorant, the uncaring, the craven need to be removed from societal decisions.
You might be interested in Prussian 3 class voting system (existed till 1918). Basically, everyone had a vote, but the weighting depended on to which income tax class one belonged. It was fairer than the British binary franchise/non-franchise at the same time.
Yes, that is a good example. As I said, details to be discussed. The basic concept stems from realization that we are not all the same wrt ability for understanding and wise decision making.
The argument against straight ticket and party affiliation is self contradictory. It follows the same logic as if you insisted that all candidates should be identified by randomly selected sequences of numbers instead of names or proposed amendment descriptions and voters must memorize those sequences before entering the voting booth because the ballot will NOT contain a reference key. It's obvious that such a policy would lead to widespread confusion and many people accidentally marking bubbles for candidates and positions they don't actually support.
Would it be desirable if every voter was well informed on each candidate and question on the ballot? Maybe. Is it realistic?. Not really. Does deliberately reducing the information available on the ballot itself effectively impose a sort of ballot test and barrier to voting? Arguably yes. Voters are certainly allowed to vote strictly on the basis of party and a primary function of parties and party platforms is to serve as shorthand for what priorities and policies any given candidate will likely pursue in office. Frankly, I suspect it's generally a better predictor than campaign promises and interviews. It's also often the ONLY information available about candidates for minor positions. For example, Tax Commissioner and Coroner are both on my ballot, but I've seen no ads for any candidate for those positions, nor any interviews or debates. In many cases, I've found the candidates for minor posts don't even have websites. Reducing the available information about candidates on the ballot would INCREASE the bias effect of arbitrary features like name order.
There's also the matter of distorting the voter base relative to the citizen population. I've previously held the position that there SHOULD be (in a moral sense, if not necessarily a legal sense) a minimum knowledge requirement to vote. I thought elections should be determined by well informed voters only. One of the best counterarguments I encountered pointed out that being "well informed" about politics is significantly correlated with partisan extremism (strong partisans pay more attention to politics than ambivalent persuadable swing voters) and demographics (men more than women, the wealthy more than the middle class or poor, whites more than blacks, etc). Raising the threshold to vote in that way might arguably result in better candidates, but it would certainly undermine the legitimacy of the election by making the voter base less representative of the population and encourage candidates to pander to those demographics.
I'm of the opinion that straight ticket voting should always be available, simply to minimize the number of accidental votes for someone from another party. Likewise, party affiliation should always be given, for the same reason. I have nothing against split ticket voting, but it ought to be a deliberate act, not an accident just because a voter doesn't recognize a name or confuses two similar names.
Incidentally, you missed mentioning another interesting source of bias: location. I've seen studies before that suggest the implied partisan lean of the location itself can significantly influence votes. For example, voters casting ballots inside a school are slightly more likely to favor Democrats and ballot measures related to education, whereas voters casting ballots at a Fire Station are slightly more likely to favor Republicans and measures supporting emergency responders.
Regarding straight tickets and party affiliation: it is inefficient to make busy people who know they generally prefer one party's candidates research everyone in great detail.
Familiar names are also extremely important, and candidates sometimes change their names to take advantage of the situation. In example, for many years the (36) "Jesse James" was the Texas State Treasurer, and J.J "Jake" Pickle was a US Representative.
Gerrymandering, -- allowing politicians to choose their voters, rather than the voters choosing the politicians is a far worse problem.
A candidate's party affiliation is important and should be indicated on the ballot. The idea that there are all these great candidates who don't receive votes because of their party affiliation--if true--seems to be the candidate's problem, not the voters'. Change your party.
"Unfairness" doesn't matter. The value of democracy is that it's a zone for contention between different factions of the elite that allows for one or the other to take power, without violence, when one has overstepped its bounds. Everything else is just window dressing to manufacture consent.
If you want representatives to accurately represent the broader public's true opinions, best to just go with a true random sample through universal, mandatory sortition.
I guess we need to measure gerrymandering state by state, by calculating efficiency gap or some other measure. I have some other ideas but not critical for here.
On the unknown candidate
100% agreed on shuffled order
i also support a box of say 250 characters for each candidate to briefly introduce themself.
That is highly applicable in electronic voting; it even can be applied to paper.
If candidate want to highlight party affiliation in those 250 characters so be it; but maybe candidate have some other things to say.
These are interesting points, but I think the single biggest problem with American federal politics is that is has a first-past-the-post presidential system and primaries. Combined with the existence of party-supporter primaries, the FTPT systems creates a significant risk of electing a polorising candidate that enjoys strong support with a sizeable minority of the population but is highly unpopular overall. Which is a bad thing.
Most presidential systems have some sort of runoff or ranked choice voting that reduces this risk, and countries with technically FPTP systems (e.g. UK) are mostly parliamentary systems where no one individual weilds much power without support.
The U.S. needs uniform voting laws in all states to reduce the complexity of voting procedures that every eligible voter must follow. This would reduce the drama, conspiracies, and legitimate and/or pointless legal battles that occur each time. The amount of drama that occurs in the U.S. electoral process these days is enough to increase the lack of trust and public confusion. The U.S. can no longer afford this level of drama. We live in different times.
“…voters should know who they’re voting for, not just which party they represent. Again, party is not a reliable enough indication of rightness or agreement with voters,…”
This would seem an conclusion not in evidence by facts. Here in AZ for example, we had an interesting, highly publicized instance where a Dem State Legislator voted *for* a Republican bill. His party apparatus did not give him permission to do so, so his fellow Dem’s literally drove him out of the capital building. Yep, he was barred from doing his constitutional duties by his fellow party members. He was redeemed after a few days when he agreed never to do such again without *party* approval first. Such has never occurred within the local Rep party to my knowledge.
So with such shenanigans, I should consider a vote for a Dem candidate because I should vote for the person, not the party? Not hardly—especially when the parties may indeed hold such sway upon their members.
That's the range of deviations from the average associated with a given order so, for example, bejng last could lead to -4pp or being first could lead to +4pp in a given election.
There was a bit of a hubbub here in Ohio when a State Supreme Court Justice told a youth group he won, "because of his knowledge of law, experience, and my name was first on most ballots".
Honesty might not have been his best policy?
I don't understand other commenters' concerns regarding helping uninformed voters without the time or wherewithal to do their own research to identify preferred candidates based on their listed party. Frankly if someone cannot inform themselves about candidates I would think it is preferable that they don't vote in the first place.
Precisely. We really need to not allow voters the franchise simply because they fog a mirror. I promote the concept of “earned suffrage”. Details to be discussed, but the ignorant, the uncaring, the craven need to be removed from societal decisions.
You might be interested in Prussian 3 class voting system (existed till 1918). Basically, everyone had a vote, but the weighting depended on to which income tax class one belonged. It was fairer than the British binary franchise/non-franchise at the same time.
Yes, that is a good example. As I said, details to be discussed. The basic concept stems from realization that we are not all the same wrt ability for understanding and wise decision making.
The argument against straight ticket and party affiliation is self contradictory. It follows the same logic as if you insisted that all candidates should be identified by randomly selected sequences of numbers instead of names or proposed amendment descriptions and voters must memorize those sequences before entering the voting booth because the ballot will NOT contain a reference key. It's obvious that such a policy would lead to widespread confusion and many people accidentally marking bubbles for candidates and positions they don't actually support.
Would it be desirable if every voter was well informed on each candidate and question on the ballot? Maybe. Is it realistic?. Not really. Does deliberately reducing the information available on the ballot itself effectively impose a sort of ballot test and barrier to voting? Arguably yes. Voters are certainly allowed to vote strictly on the basis of party and a primary function of parties and party platforms is to serve as shorthand for what priorities and policies any given candidate will likely pursue in office. Frankly, I suspect it's generally a better predictor than campaign promises and interviews. It's also often the ONLY information available about candidates for minor positions. For example, Tax Commissioner and Coroner are both on my ballot, but I've seen no ads for any candidate for those positions, nor any interviews or debates. In many cases, I've found the candidates for minor posts don't even have websites. Reducing the available information about candidates on the ballot would INCREASE the bias effect of arbitrary features like name order.
There's also the matter of distorting the voter base relative to the citizen population. I've previously held the position that there SHOULD be (in a moral sense, if not necessarily a legal sense) a minimum knowledge requirement to vote. I thought elections should be determined by well informed voters only. One of the best counterarguments I encountered pointed out that being "well informed" about politics is significantly correlated with partisan extremism (strong partisans pay more attention to politics than ambivalent persuadable swing voters) and demographics (men more than women, the wealthy more than the middle class or poor, whites more than blacks, etc). Raising the threshold to vote in that way might arguably result in better candidates, but it would certainly undermine the legitimacy of the election by making the voter base less representative of the population and encourage candidates to pander to those demographics.
I'm of the opinion that straight ticket voting should always be available, simply to minimize the number of accidental votes for someone from another party. Likewise, party affiliation should always be given, for the same reason. I have nothing against split ticket voting, but it ought to be a deliberate act, not an accident just because a voter doesn't recognize a name or confuses two similar names.
Incidentally, you missed mentioning another interesting source of bias: location. I've seen studies before that suggest the implied partisan lean of the location itself can significantly influence votes. For example, voters casting ballots inside a school are slightly more likely to favor Democrats and ballot measures related to education, whereas voters casting ballots at a Fire Station are slightly more likely to favor Republicans and measures supporting emergency responders.
Regarding straight tickets and party affiliation: it is inefficient to make busy people who know they generally prefer one party's candidates research everyone in great detail.
"American Elections Are Unfair"
The United States is a plutocratic oligarchy, so elections are meaningless. We live under one-party control...the Deep State.
Sortition and meritocracy are the best democracy reforms: https://zerocontradictions.net/civilization/democracy
Familiar names are also extremely important, and candidates sometimes change their names to take advantage of the situation. In example, for many years the (36) "Jesse James" was the Texas State Treasurer, and J.J "Jake" Pickle was a US Representative.
Gerrymandering, -- allowing politicians to choose their voters, rather than the voters choosing the politicians is a far worse problem.
I would have voted for anyone called JJ Pickle regardless of policy.
A candidate's party affiliation is important and should be indicated on the ballot. The idea that there are all these great candidates who don't receive votes because of their party affiliation--if true--seems to be the candidate's problem, not the voters'. Change your party.
I understand that California orders candidates alphabetically, but with the one that comes first selected randomly and the rest "wrapping around".
"Unfairness" doesn't matter. The value of democracy is that it's a zone for contention between different factions of the elite that allows for one or the other to take power, without violence, when one has overstepped its bounds. Everything else is just window dressing to manufacture consent.
If you want representatives to accurately represent the broader public's true opinions, best to just go with a true random sample through universal, mandatory sortition.
where is gerrymandering here.
I guess we need to measure gerrymandering state by state, by calculating efficiency gap or some other measure. I have some other ideas but not critical for here.
On the unknown candidate
100% agreed on shuffled order
i also support a box of say 250 characters for each candidate to briefly introduce themself.
That is highly applicable in electronic voting; it even can be applied to paper.
If candidate want to highlight party affiliation in those 250 characters so be it; but maybe candidate have some other things to say.
These are interesting points, but I think the single biggest problem with American federal politics is that is has a first-past-the-post presidential system and primaries. Combined with the existence of party-supporter primaries, the FTPT systems creates a significant risk of electing a polorising candidate that enjoys strong support with a sizeable minority of the population but is highly unpopular overall. Which is a bad thing.
Most presidential systems have some sort of runoff or ranked choice voting that reduces this risk, and countries with technically FPTP systems (e.g. UK) are mostly parliamentary systems where no one individual weilds much power without support.
The U.S. needs uniform voting laws in all states to reduce the complexity of voting procedures that every eligible voter must follow. This would reduce the drama, conspiracies, and legitimate and/or pointless legal battles that occur each time. The amount of drama that occurs in the U.S. electoral process these days is enough to increase the lack of trust and public confusion. The U.S. can no longer afford this level of drama. We live in different times.
“…voters should know who they’re voting for, not just which party they represent. Again, party is not a reliable enough indication of rightness or agreement with voters,…”
This would seem an conclusion not in evidence by facts. Here in AZ for example, we had an interesting, highly publicized instance where a Dem State Legislator voted *for* a Republican bill. His party apparatus did not give him permission to do so, so his fellow Dem’s literally drove him out of the capital building. Yep, he was barred from doing his constitutional duties by his fellow party members. He was redeemed after a few days when he agreed never to do such again without *party* approval first. Such has never occurred within the local Rep party to my knowledge.
So with such shenanigans, I should consider a vote for a Dem candidate because I should vote for the person, not the party? Not hardly—especially when the parties may indeed hold such sway upon their members.
I’m confused by Grant, Figure 2. Are those rectangles confidence intervals? Because they appear to cross zero in each case.
That's the range of deviations from the average associated with a given order so, for example, bejng last could lead to -4pp or being first could lead to +4pp in a given election.
Surely the first reform to make is getting rid of first past the post for states.
Well, if you are replacing such with rank order balloting, I’m not convinced.